There Was a Reason
by TopKat
Summary: ...And it was so many things. [akuroku][a tryptch, of sorts]
1. Chapter 1

There was a reason, and it was Roxas.

Axel smiled to himself as the sunlight started to fade away, his head feeling clouded and soft, his throat harbouring a lovely and strange lump. He could feel - oh, yes, he could. He could feel the light on his skin and the hollow in his chest, the absence of a beat and that nagging longing that made him want to be complete...but it had faded to a dull ache, more painful than ever before, and it had never mattered less. His cloak felt heavy, his arms were cold and his face was perfect, basking in the slow light that lit him up and then disappeared so fleetingly, plunging him once again into icy darkness...but not before twilight came.

He was alone.

But something was coming - he was sure of it, sure enough that the heart he'd lost was beating away somewhere, pumped with adrenaline and raring to meet this opportunity - to run away with it lifting him towards the sky. A laugh bubbled in his throat and he released it, loving hysteria and disbelief and knowing that something wonderful was going to happen. Something amazing. _Someone amazing_.

It was silly, really, to subject himself to the cold and the wind and the heights, just so he could feel slightly alive, for once...but it was worth it. Climbing the clocktower was worth it, and this apocalypic, epic feeling he'd never even imagined before was so intense that his chest tightened almost as if the heart was dodging out of reach - so close he could almost touch it but kept missing, frustration building. He could have cried and laughed and screamed all at once, wanting in that brief moment to throw himself off of the clocktower just to see if he could fly. His throat ached for an expression of the feeling, not content with a dramatic whisper or words spoken in disbelief - it wanted a rushing, orgasmic cry to ring out across the town with enough volume to be heard, enough feeling to be noticed, enough strength to be heeded.

Tears coursed their way from his eyes into his smile, tasting salty and sweet, like blood. He didn't understand any of it, wondering if he remembered crying from before, or if this was_ just him _feeling these things, not a scattered memory like a far-off dream...He hoped it was. He hoped he wasn't nobody to everyone.

He hoped this feeling wasn't a lie, because there had been too many in the past and too many lying in wait in the future...

He hoped he was happy.


	2. Chapter 2

There was another reason, and it was Love.

It felt silly to be here again. Watching the sunset with that building feeling being torn down in the sweetest of ways, eating ice cream, for god's sake, as a younger boy fell softly asleep at his side. He steadied the other with a hand, making sure he'd never fall from the tower. Axel still wanted to.

Maybe one day, they'd jump together and know if they could fly.

And of course, of all the cliches in the world, the feeling before had been love. Love coming or visiting or gracing his prescence. Axel had fallen hard, but not in the way that he wanted. He wanted to hit the ground with such force that it knocked his chest open and exposed his emptiness to the world - because if it was opened, maybe then it could be filled. Sometimes. Only sometimes, did he want to jump alone.

The beauty in the way that this small creature had looked at him and smiled, followed him up here and smiled again, without a word to ruin the silence...and now he slept softly, without the horrible human habits of mumbling and snoring. Axel felt intimidated by how small and breakable the child obviously was - but how he carried himself as if nothing could ever touch him. How silently within hours he had wriggled his way into the cavity Axel so desperately wanted to fill, and had taken up one of the corners, unnoticed. He felt terrible to want this child so badly, like this child...

_Roxas. He was Roxas. _

Like he was the key to everything Axel had ever wanted, and so much more like he'd never dreamed. He hated having to wait and wonder if Roxas had felt it too, and thinking that if he ever did get a heart, it would have to be broken...just so Roxas could sew it back together with his soft little hands.

They would be side by side forever.

It just depended how long forever really was.


	3. Chapter 3

There was a reason, and it was Gone.

It didn't hurt as much as he'd expected, strangely. At first it had ached like nothing ever before, as if the key that was ruining their perfection had been plunged through him and was twisting ever tighter.

It was light, too much so, and the sunlight stung his skin, making it prickle. He could sense the prescences beside him - feeling, laughing, existing - and he wanted to tear them apart.

But he didn't, because if he touched them they would fall, and they would fly, and they would crush his dream.

His eyes were too tired to cry anymore, his voice too shattered to scream and thunder about him being so lost and alone and without feeling...the presence was gone from his heart, leaving only an emptiness that he could neither place nor name. It wasn't heartbreak - of course. Of course. And that was the base of it all, wasn't it? He was empty before and empty after...but for a time, he'd been filled, and warm, and happy. Maybe Roxas had never felt it fill him because still there was a beauty inside him that Axel could never have touched, despite the whisperings of his love and the dark nights together - and the days, and the evenings and the time he'd spent loving as best he could.

He'd been forgotten so easily that he doubted he'd ever been with Roxas at all...but he wanted to be. He loved that boy more than anybody - more than nobody - ever had before, and he knew it as Roxas ignored him with an air of satisfaction and happiness that Axel had always failed to instill.

So he went over to Roxas, unseen, and wrapped his arms around the boy, pressing his cheek against the other's with a smile and pushing, hard, on the clock with his feet. The air was beautiful as they fell together, pelting towards the ground with smiles on their faces and the wonder, the colours, rushing past them as they flew past all meaning...

And hit the ground so hard that their chests flew open.

Because that was love, he supposed, blinking at the fleshy lump that pulsated inside Roxas, pink and wonderful and utterly disgusting. He looked down at himself, wondering if it had ever been real in the first place.

He knew. He knew that no matter how hard you love...no matter how much you want something, you can never have it.

Because Nobody doesn't deserve happiness.


End file.
